


A Melancholy in the Blood

by Nice_Valkyrie



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Guilt, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 12:02:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20873894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nice_Valkyrie/pseuds/Nice_Valkyrie
Summary: Marcoh can't imagine—can't allow himself to imagine—Scar approaching him in any other way.





	A Melancholy in the Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Koraki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koraki/gifts).

It’s the first time Marcoh’s been back north since the Promised Day, and he thinks he has a fever. The farther he and Scar travel, the hotter the days get. The taste in his mouth is just as he remembers: sharp and dry, curiously aromatic. He recalls that he meant to research what that flavor is; he never cared much for botany. Now it’s too late, of course. 

But the nights grow cold. Even in their earlier travels he didn’t shiver like this. He sweats beneath a single blanket, 

He has dreams, the kind partway between awake and asleep, where his knowledge of who and where he is grows unstable. Sometimes he dreams of a tall man who holds him—not hurting, not forcing, just touching with warmth and sweetness.

Sometimes the man hurts Marcoh. 

It makes no difference. He awakes in fits and starts throughout the night, staring at the dark ceilings of travellers’ accommodations and willing the pace of his heart to slow. He’s growing older, only a certain number of beats left; he wouldn’t want to waste any more of them. 

The dreams unsettle him. His fever dreams. What else could they be?

Scar decides they should stop at a teahouse just outside Mallet’s Forge. It’s owned by a black-haired woman older than Marcoh and with a bad hunch. 

“He fears illness?” She shakes her head. “It’s not the right time of year.”

But she sits them at a table and brings them a tea anyway. It’s spiced with lemon, mint, and something sweet Marcoh can’t identify. His hand shakes as he drinks it. Scar watches him closely.

There’s something about Scar’s eyes that Marcoh didn’t notice when they met, but hasn’t been able to stop noticing since. The irises aren’t pure red. There’s a darker ring around his pupils the color of rich wine, feathering out to the purer crimson around the edges. Here and there are flecks of amber.

The imperfections give his stares a heavier, more magnetic quality. Iron, Marcoh thinks. The same element that hid in the lodestones people used as early compasses, that turns some soils rust-colored, and that hums along in his blood so he might breathe. Is iron what gives Scar’s eyes their pigment? Is that why those eyes stir Marcoh’s blood so?

“Elderberries,” says Scar. “They are what makes the tea so dark.”

The woman smiles and nods. “There’s no need for concern,” she tells him. “Your husband will be in good health.”

This has happened before. 

The first time was the fault of a touch, the accidental brush of bare fingers while sharing bread. That night, Scar complained quietly of insomnia and sat beside Marcoh, watching the stars brighten as if they welcomed the escape to the north. 

Without warning, Scar’s hand fell upon Marcoh’s thigh. It lay ineffectually for a moment before beginning to move, much as Marcoh’s cock did beneath the subsequent kneading. Then Scar climbed on top of him and Marcoh was sharing something with another man that he hadn’t in years. 

They said nothing to each other. The next time was silent, too, and the next, and all the others. In fact, they’ve never spoken of it directly. All that their nighttime fumbling amounts to is another series of mistakes. 

Recently, it’s been other people who provoke it, with knowing smiles or offhand references to perceived familiarity. It’s not even the first time they’ve been mistaken for husbands. The perception makes Marcoh queasy, because he must not allow himself to explore the idea. He must not allow himself to think of Scar, of any of it, when he touches his own cock. 

Because this arrangement, like the punishment he carries visibly on his face, suits him. He can’t imagine any other way. By now Marcoh ought to be accustomed to submitting himself to the waves of guilt, shame, and even fear. After all, when it’s painful, it almost feels right. 

“Her vision was failing,” says Marcoh when they return to their rooms, to break the silence fallen between them. “She couldn’t have seen me properly.”

Scar stops in the middle of removing his coat. But he doesn’t speak, only looks at Marcoh, waiting.

The fever has gotten worse: every inch of his skin feels inflamed. The tea was a mistake at best. His mouth is terribly dry. “If she had seen my face, she never would have thought that we—that you could—”

Scar walks forward. “You’re certain that’s the only possibility?” 

The lamp on the other side of the room rings Scar in golden light. Marcoh can’t help but recall their first meeting at times like these. Scar’s sudden appearance from above, his looming figure, the divine emotion in his eyes—

_ Forgive me_, Marcoh thinks.

He hides his face with one shaking hand. “Don’t look at me,” he whispers, but Scar pries the hand free and pins it above Marcoh’s head. Then he pins the other one, wrists pressing painfully against each other and scraping against the brick.

“I already know who you are,” says Scar.

His free hand is yanking his trousers open, and then Marcoh’s. His touch is a flagellation until he fills his palm with saliva, and then they slide against each other with surprising ease. Marcoh moans involuntarily. 

“I _ know_,” Scar says again, and he closes his hand around them both.

It happens quickly, as it always does, rushed and silent and blind. Sweat beads on Marcoh’s brow as his eyes sting and spill over. The friction rides the line between pleasure and pain, and then soars beyond it. Pinned like this, stretched between what his body wants and what his mind knows he shouldn’t, he finally allows himself to wonder if Scar will ever approach him without anger or outrage. 

The selfishness of that desire! 

He gasps as he comes, a weak, choked sound. Scar lets go and strokes himself ever more urgently, until he finds his own release, shuddering and filling his hand again. 

For a moment, there’s nothing between them except shared ragged breath. The air feels cold against Marcoh’s skin. North, he reminds himself, as his heart beats a dizzying pace. Fever. Scar. Nothing has changed.

But Scar lifts his glistening hand and brings his palm to Marcoh’s lips. Like the offering of a draught in sickness, it’s a kindness he’ll never again believe he deserves.

Marcoh opens his mouth and swallows. He gags on the texture, and the taste, which is saltier than before. He can’t place why.

But Scar knows. He brushes his knuckles across Marcoh’s ruined cheek, wiping the tears away.


End file.
